Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

“Be faithful to France,” said he to his son Juan, who succeeded him, 1380; “but above all, draw to your side the followers of my brother Pedro. They are true hidalgos, who were faithful to him on the losing side.”

Bertrand Du Guesclin, or Claquin, received the price of his baseness in the Dukedoms of Molinos and Soria, but, as with Judas, the possession of great riches gave him no pleasure. He afterwards sold them for a small sum and returned to France, a sorrowing and a dishonoured man; and Charles the Bad received, I am happy to say, the reward of his treason in a series of defeats at the hand of Enrique de Trastamare.

CHAPTER XX

Juan I. – Enrique el Enfermo

THE Court vacillates between Burgos and Valladolid, both cities of the plain. Since the death of Don Pedro the charms of Seville are neglected.

All the fighting is in the north, mostly with Aragon and Portugal.

Valladolid (Belad-Waled of the Moors) remains much the same dull, ugly town, without a charm; to be greatly favoured by-and-by by Philip the Second, when his time comes to reign, as one of the centres of the Inquisition, and a convenient place to burn heretics in the great Plaza.

But Burgos has become a noble city, much altered and embellished since the homely days of the Cid Campeador, when his Suelo stood on the ridge of the hill facing east, near the royal castle where he and Doña Ximena were received at their marriage with such honour by King Fernando and the queen.

The king was always talking, but Ximena held down her head and seldom gave an answer to anything he said. “It is better sure to be silent than meaningless,” she said.

Fernando el Santo, in succession to Fernando the First, afterwards laid the foundations of the cathedral standing at the base of the hill, and his successors finished it; that gracious sanctuary which rears itself, so pure and white, out of the tawny land. Too ornate and minute perhaps, but lovely all the same – pointed steeples transparent in fine stone-work and open to the sky, an army of statues glistening in the sun up to the spandrels and the dome, and semicircles, colonettes, and arches by the score – every ledge and cornice filled, until the eye turns away fatigued by the prodigality of ornament. Inside the coro a mass of golden entablatures is lighted with ranges of painted windows, filling the nave with a kaleidoscope of colour, and the fourteen chapels which line the walls, each complete in itself – Condestable and Santiago, San Enrique and San Juan, each with carved retablos, a statue or a monument in the midst. That of Condestable, so named from Don Pedro de Velasco, Grand Constable of Spain, where he and his wife are extended on an alabaster tomb in the elaborate costume of the day, necklace, ruff, brocade, and head-dress; even to the tiny curls on the back of the little spaniel lying at the lady’s feet, half hidden by the folds of her dress, in so natural a position one asks oneself what will the little creature do when he wakes and finds his mistress dead?

Outside, the gaily-tinted streets are variegated as in a patchwork of colour, and over against the dried-up banks of the river Arlanzon (where the tournament was held for the marriage of Don Pedro and Queen Blanche), the grand old gothic gateway of Santa Maria appears, from out of which the Cid rode to join the Moors when no one dared to give him a crust of bread in Burgos.

The time is morning, and an unclouded sun has just risen above the horizon. Already the idlest and the most eager are afoot, to secure a good position for the review to be held by King Juan I.

Before the clock has struck ten from the cathedral, the crowd has so increased that the whole plain is alive with horsemen and foot-passengers, cabelleros splendidly mounted, ricoshombres in chariots and portantini, and peasants with sturdy stride: every one muffled up to the eyes, which is the fashion of Castilians, even when it is hot – all making their way, on the grass or by country roads and foot-paths, to the Cartuga de Miraflores seen from afar on the summit of a chalky down, sweet with the perfume of thyme and rosemary, over which the summer clouds strike light shadows. Flourishes of trumpets announce the passage of knights with glistening helmets, and the glitter of gold-embroidered banners, masses of moving horsemen and squadrons of troops, mixed with crescent flags and turbans of many colours, the light Barbary horses caracoling here and there, covered with nets of coins and chains, catching the sunbeams; announcing the presence of an army and the evolutions of many troops, especially of a picked body habited like Berbers, who gallop forward in gallant style, brandishing their scimitars to the rattle of drums and fifes. Anon a mounted figure dashes out from the main body of troops, wearing a suit of light chain armour in which gold is the chief metal, a spiked crown mixing with the feathers of his casque, mounted on a heavy-flanked charger of the old gothic breed so loved by the sovereigns of Spain, which he fiercely urges forward with spur and heel in front of the rapidly riding Berbers, until the unwieldy animal, gored by the sharp rowels of steel, rears and turns aside, dashing the crowned rider onto the ground, where he lies motionless!

A cry of horror rises from the field. The king is wounded! The king is unhorsed; he is dead! Knights in their light panoply are arrested in their charge; courtiers in jewelled mantles on ambling jennets rein up; men-at-arms, young pages with nodding plumes on silken caps, all, all, in one dense mass, gathering around the fallen figure of the king, Juan I., son of Henry of Trastamare (1379), who came out to review some regiments just arrived from Africa habited to represent the Moors, and going through their graceful evolutions with lance and scimitar.

Unhappy king! There he lies, a corpse! He never moved, and is borne off from the field on a trestle hastily formed of gilded lances laid across, covered with the flag of Castile, a melancholy spectacle, his soldiers following with many a moistened eye, to be buried in the cathedral, beneath gorgeous gold panels in the coro.

The race of Trastamare, destined soon to end, brings short and troubled reigns, in which the superstitious may read an ever-present curse in the fratricide of Don Pedro.

The last words of Don Enrique el Caballero were a warning to his son Juan not to follow his footsteps, “but to cherish the followers of Don Pedro, who were faithful in adversity” – a curious glimpse into the idiosyncrasy of his mind at the moment when the crown for which he had sacrificed his honour as a knight and his fealty as a brother is fading from him as he approaches the misty confines of another world. “Verily his sin will find him out,” says the Bible, and so it was with Henry of Trastamare. Juan I., his son, dies a miserable death at thirty-four (A.D. 1390) on a mimic battle-field.

He had none of the bloodthirsty instincts of his family. He fought with English and Portuguese because it was the duty of kings of that day to fight, but with no ferocity of temperament or greed of conquest. He had inherited the softer qualities of the winning Caballero whom all men loved, before the unnatural cruelty of his brother, and the sting of repeated reverses drove him to the commission of a crime which will ever cling to his name.

Juan is succeeded by his young son Enrique, known as El Enfermo, under a Council of Regency, presided over by the Archbishop of Toledo and the Marqués de Villena.

No wonder the child of eleven is sick and tired of life under the oppressive surroundings in which he lives.

The Marqués de Villena, a grandee with the privilege of wearing his hat in the royal presence, and irritable and sarcastic when he dares, turns the royal boy’s blood cold when he rivets upon him his keen black eyes. Under the guise of devotion to his person he exercises over him every species of petty tyranny, and when, driven beyond his patience, the gentle Don Enrique pouts his lip and knits his young brow, he calls in the archbishop to help him, who, in his turn, exhorts the unhappy young king to conform in all things to the will of “the Regents” placed over him under God. Else – here the stately prelate pauses with a significant glance upwards, not to the sky, for these scenes generally take place within the palace, but all the same invoking the Divine wrath upon the disobedient child, who, well understanding what the archbishop means, is seized with such an access of unknown and mysterious terror as leaves him a helpless victim in their hands.

According to these two (there are other nobles in the Council of Regency, such as Don Pedro de Mendoza, the treasurer who disposes of the revenue, but the archbishop and Villena chiefly rule Castile) Enrique is to have no eyes, ears, or senses, but at their bidding. If he asks a question as to the matters of his kingdom, commands a largess to be disbursed, or expresses a wish for liberty to hunt or exercise himself in arms, or to entertain his friends, he is at once treated like a troublesome child and silenced.

Little by little, as time goes on, a sense of wrong and injustice rankles in his heart which neither the marquess nor the archbishop understands, but they continue assiduously to divide between them the power and the revenues of Castile.

Don Enrique is now sixteen; yet, as the years pass, the strength of his young life does not come to him in robustness of frame or sinew. Music is his passion – the old ballads which we hear as dance tunes in modern Spain, gallardas and seguidillas set to words – and the chase, a strange taste in one so weak. Between these pursuits his time is chiefly passed; nor are those who govern him at all displeased that such simple pleasures should occupy his thoughts and divert him from any possible interference in affairs of state.

One other comfort he has in life, the company of Don Garcia de Haro. He is a few years older than himself, and was placed with him as a companion by his father, almost from his birth, to cheer him in his many childish ailments, and share in the amusements of his solitary childhood. And now, in his dull life as king, with no one to sympathise with or love him, he clings to Garcia as to a kindred soul. With this intercourse the Regents dare not meddle, although Garcia, who is much more experienced than the king, may, in course of time, become dangerous to their interests. But a certain martinet warns them not to rouse by interference the latent passions of the young king, whose reserved and silent nature is as a sealed book to their understanding.

Now the two friends are riding side by side down the steep hill from the ancient castle of Sahagun, a stronghold belted in by machicolated walls, situated to the north of Burgos, where the court has gone for the enjoyment of hunting in the abundant Vega watered by the river Cea. A capital place for snipe, partridge, and woodcock, with the chance of stags or even of wild boars driven down by cold or hunger from the adjacent mountains.

A slender retinue follows Don Enrique, for it is not in the policy of the Regents to indulge him in much state, “the revenues being needed for the necessities of the kingdom,” he is told, and the court expenses, consequently, must be curtailed.

“But what matters!” is his thought, as he loosens the reins on the neck of the noble Andalusian barb on which he is mounted, with a coat as sleek as silk, as it bounds forward, swift as the wind, over the turf. Garcia is with him, and they are hastening at the top of their speed to spend a happy afternoon together with music and song in an old pavilion, built by the Moors as a garden house or delicias, at some miles distant from Sahagun.

“Now, Garcia, I do feel like a king,” shouts Don Enrique, turning in his saddle, the wind catching his words and flinging them back to his companion, a little in the rear. “I am out of reach of the marquess. No, not even the awful archbishop can threaten me here.”

“Ah! my lord,” returns Garcia de Haro, speaking under the influence of the same rapid movement, his words barely reaching the ear for which they are intended, “may it ever be so!”

“It shall!” cries the king, turning carelessly on his saddle to cast a hurried glance, full of affection, at him. “It shall, it shall!”

Now they are passing on a true Spanish road, full of holes and overlaid with stones, on by the aqueduct into a cool avenue, all fluttering with elm leaves, past the Cruz del Campo– and what a campo, as flat as my hand – the sky glowing over them like an opal, to the murmur of many waters and a rush of streams, onto a high plateau, where the pleasant air cheerfully fills the lungs as with the flavour of new wine; through corn fields and olive grounds and fig gardens and vineyards, bordered by low banks; the pleasant songs of the farmers in their ears, as with a lazy team of fat oxen they plough the fertile earth. A scent as of blossoming beans is in the air; the berries of the ripening olives toss over their heads; folks pass and repass on donkeys, and rough men lead files of mules, all with a “Vaya con Dios,” open-eyed at the young king, uncovering his head in silent courtesy, though the hoofs of his horse scatter pebbles in their faces.

Now they are passing a lonely village, the whole population sitting at their doors, a stool placed close by, with a white cloth and a plate for charity, round which gather the blind and the cripples, impelling themselves forward at the risk of their lives, but the cavalcade rushes by too quickly to stop to relieve them.

At last they have reached the Moorish Quinta, a low, flat-roofed building with a tapia border, flanked by towers, from one of which floats the flag of Spain, the front cut by long rows of miradores and shutterless casements staring upon them like unlidded eyes.

The drawbridge is down and the sculptured portal open. Not a creature is about to salute the king, but a posse of fierce dogs, the Penates of the place, break out from behind a wall and fly at the horses’ heels, who highly resent the attack with many kicks and plunges, to the imminent danger of the riders, while terrified cows rush in from the woods to increase the confusion, then bolt into space, pursued by the dogs.

All this time not a soul has appeared. The page who has accompanied the king advances to assist him to dismount, as well as his old attendant, Martos, but, before they can reach him, he has sprung lightly from the saddle, and looks around.

“What! no one to receive me?” he says, with a light laugh, but a frown is on his face all the same. “Do the Regents hold me for a schoolboy, to be punished when I go abroad?”

“Such disrespect is not to be endured,” returns Garcia, of a much more impetuous temperament than the king, which betrays itself by the impatience with which he paces up and down, searching every corner, then sounding a horn he wears across his shoulders; but the long-drawn notes bring no response save innumerable echoes and a dense flight of birds from the old building, frightened from their nests.

“It makes my blood boil to see your Grace so treated,” cries Garcia, returning with heightened colour to the king’s side. “How dare the Regents – ”

“Tush! tush! Garcia, I am sure it is accidental.”

“Impossible, my lord! I myself announced your intention of taking your midday meal here. You observe the flag is flying.”

All this time the bevy of dogs keep up such a chorus of barking that they can hardly hear themselves speak, closing round them as if determined for an attack.

“Let them bark,” says the king, carelessly, fronting one savage old hound with fiery eyes and tail erect, about to leap on him.

Martos and the page, seriously alarmed, rush to his rescue with sticks and stones.

“Better this noise than silence. The dogs after all are doing their duty, which my servants are not. Perhaps their barking will bring out some one to stable our horses. See how wet the flanks of the poor beasts are and how they tremble. Look to them well, Juanito,” to the page, who, doffing his plumed cap, bows to the ground, “I would not have Zulema take any harm for half the kingdom I do NOT rule. We have ridden hard and long; let us hope that a good repast awaits us. I have a keen appetite.”

“I do not see where it is to come from,” answers Garcia, following the king over the drawbridge into the patio.

It was a lovely place, this Moorish patio, shut in by walls delicately embroidered and diapered in stone, supported by ranges of horseshoe arches, light as a dream, grouped on double pillars as white as snow, the central space traversed by walks paved with coloured tiles, followed by rustic arches cut in yew in fanciful devices of pyramids and crowns, from which hung coloured lanterns in the summer nights when the harem made holiday here long ago, a bubbling fountain in the midst, cutting tiny canals edged with flowers.

“Here I could live and die!” exclaims the young king, standing entranced in the centre, the sound of many waters flowing from jets and tunnels mingling with the songs of birds emboldened by the stillness and fluttering in the boughs. “Give me my zither and lute, I should never care to return to Burgos. Come, Garcia,” turning to his companion, “let us explore the interior of this fair mansion.”

But Garcia, not at all poetical by nature, and who is growing every moment more indignant at the absence of the jefe and the lack of every preparation, follows him in silence under a colonnade from which the various apartments open out through doors of cedar wood into an Arab hall – a blaze of gorgeous colour.

“This passes all belief!” cried Garcia, looking round, unable any longer to suppress his feelings. “It is high time that your Grace emancipates yourself. If this insult leads to the fall of the Regents (and you are already sixteen, and competent to reign), it will satisfy me better than the choicest meal ever served to mortal, though I confess I am as hungry as a wolf.”